


this maze so bittersweet

by kalypsobean



Category: Reset (2017)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 13:33:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17122325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: Xia Tian falls.





	this maze so bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annie D (scaramouche)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/gifts).



_and why do we have to complete_  
_this story of lies and deceit_  
_can't we just flip the page and take a different road_  
_and now the sky is in motion above me_  
_and i think i'm going to fall_  
\--- fall, tony vincent

 

The first thing Xia Tian noticed was the sensation of falling. It wasn't exactly unexpected; the process involved being accelerated, and the fastest way to start was a freefall, but she didn't expect to feel it, or for so long. She knew, approximately, how it worked - fall, particle separation, wormhole, particle recombination - but the chimpanzees weren't able to tell them things like what it felt like, or when a particular step began to happen. She didn't know whether to brace herself for pain, or whether she was actually moving at all; idly, she thought she should do her best to remember this, but her mind was too foggy, her body too lax, and though she tried to hold on to the timeline - to what happened and what she needed to do and what would happen next - she soon stopped thinking in words.

It didn't matter if it hurt, anyway. She needed this to work, she needed to go back and she needed to save Dou Dou. For that, she could take a little bit of pain. If that was all she had to deal with, so much the better, but for Dou Dou there was no price too high. Just when the pain started, though, when the air grew too hard to breathe and her body felt like it was being pulled this way and that, it stopped.

 

The timeline grew crystal clear in her mind, but seemed to be running backwards, quickly and silently, as if it was being rewound. She saw all the possibilities as the images flashed past - they could let Dou Dou go, they could have already killed him, she could kill them, she could switch out the data module, she could...  
the images stopped just before she could stop them ever reaching Dou Dou, and instead of holding her son and never returning to work, she saw herself holding him as a baby, as a toddler, as an adult, taller and stronger than she was, than his father was.

 

The floor was cold; it should be warm, for it having just been used, the lights on, the scanners running. Her SR cells should be fine; she felt fine, at least, and there wasn't time to check, nor the proper data to compare against. When they'd sent things before, they'd always taken a dataset to compare to. She hadn't had the time to leave one, and she doubted that she would be back in time to make one, or that her presence would be so ineffectual that this universe's copy of herself would require the same actions in the same way. Data would be barely less than useless, and she did not have time; it took long enough just to get Da Xiong to understand, and then she had to move.

 

The second time, even though she was prepared for it, was just as jarring as the first. She saw two timelines as she fell, and for a moment, she thought of them crossing, linking together like DNA being recombined. They knitted together and fell apart before her; she saw Dou Dou fall and laugh and fall and laugh and laugh and fall, and this time the last thing she remembered was screaming.

 

This time she pushed off the disorientation and the vertigo and stumbled out of the accelerator on her own; she couldn't help comparing her symptoms, but disregarded them as soon as she noticed them and decided they weren't important enough to address. Nausea could be expected, after all, and was never consistently experienced; it could be that she hadn't eaten, or the blood loss, or hypocalcemia from the lack of SR cells. Disorientation, too, was normal, for someone having just fallen several stories; it was like the bullet coaster, but without an end, without safety warnings, and experienced alone. _Alone;_ she'd ridden it with Dou Dou, as soon as he had been tall enough, and he'd held his arms up and pretended to be a Rainbow Ranger, and she'd had to carry him after until he was able to stand on his own.

It was all worth it for Dou Dou; she'd have to find a way to keep him with her, after, once he was safe.

 

She disregarded the red spots at first; they were all covered with blood of some kind, and she'd taken more than one impact, burst capillaries and bruising were to be expected, and they would heal, in time, and then  
she stares at her body, the gun still in her hand, and she understands what she'd been saying to herself; this body has the red spots up her arms and feels less together; that may be because it's new, or with both of her in here, or because she's exhausted, or because the loop has degraded their bodies, the abnormality building on itself until her body starts to shut down, running on will and love rather than nervous electricity.

 

Her hand, their hand, her hand; it hovers over the touchscreen, and she can't make herself press down, disrupting the current enough to tell it what to do. Her phone rings, and she stops, for a brief moment; they say goodbye to Dou Dou, though he doesn't know it, and they can't find enough words to cover everything, for they've seen him die over and over and have a lifetime's worth of things to say.

She, the new one, reconfigures the accelerator: _**YES**_ becomes _**NO**_ , and the first one goes _yes_ , and they touch the screen together.

This time they don't fall alone; the timelines seem to braid around each other, becoming strong, a bright single cord that reaches beyond their sight, and they see everything. Dou Dou graduates and has children of his own and he doesn't ever seem to remember them, or what happened; they find comfort in that, that they did something in the end. The project collapses without them; the new Xia Tian never leaps, and the data is lost without the people to access it.

And Dou Dou is always seven, always five. He always raises his arms and screams _rainbow unite!_ as they descend. He always tells her he's fallen before, and he gets back up. He always dies.

Xia Tian never stops falling.

Xia Tian never stopped falling.


End file.
